Peck was hopping from foot to foot in his excitement to get back to the lines. He had a piece of rhinoworm in one hand and a bait-plug cutter in the other. Purple blood was dribbling from the meat and in his agitation he was spattering his long hide coat, canvas trousers, and the surrounding woodwork. Ambel gestured for him to get on. Peck eagerly nodded his bald head, a crazy look in his greenish eyes, and then he turned back to his fellow crewmen on the deck. Here there was much yelling and swearing, and there were many heavy wet creatures thrashing about. Ambel looked past Peck just as Pland hauled in a turbul the size of a canoe and leapt on top of it to stop it from flicking itself over the side again. The turbul was much the shape of a canoe, in fact. Its head was the head of a caiman, and all around its dark-green body, bright-blue fins seemed to have been scattered at random. Its tail was a whip ending in a fin that resembled a hatchet.

‘Yahoo!’ yelled Pland as the turbul bucked underneath him and tried to throw him off, then, ‘Keep still, yer bugger.’ He was indifferent to the wide gash the turbul had opened in his back with the lashing of its tail. Ambel stepped over and caught hold of the turbul’s snapping jaws in one hand, then with his other hand reached over and flicked it firmly between the eyes with his forefinger. There was a dull thud as of an iron bar hitting a log. The turbul’s eyes crossed and its body went limp.

‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Pland as he dismounted. ‘Reckon you can pull this’n? He’s a bit big for me.’

Ambel shrugged, took a firmer grip on the turbul’s jaws with his right hand and put his left hand on the flesh behind its head. He pulled, and with a ripping sound the head pulled out of its socket with the spine following. As he continued to pull, the tail and fins drew into the turbul’s body, finally to disappear. When Ambel repositioned his grip halfway down the turbul’s spine for one last heave, the creature’s flesh came off like an old sock, leaving him holding a straggly mess of head, spine, a baggy sack of internal organs, and the fins and tail - all still joined. He held this up in front of himself for a moment and gave it a couple of shakes. The eyes uncrossed and the spine, fins and tail began to writhe. The end of the tail whipped at Ambel’s face but he easily caught it.